This is nonsense — the baseline definition of what Europe is has changed significantly in this timeframe. More remarkable is how quickly the US market cap has grown in the same period without the benefit of having added several countries to its geography…

A few things: 1st, the graph (and the article) say WWI, not WWII. 2nd, without the data to dissect (thanks for that, NY Post), we can’t know what Thomson Financial includes in this study, but it does clearly state that there are 24 financial markets included in the study (so it is not including additional markets for the 1Q07 figure), so by whatever methodology used, the European exchanges are growing faster than the U.S. exchanges thanks to a combo of improving currencies, growing companies, and presumably a wealthier and larger population/customer base thanks to the growth and prosperity of the EU itself. You can get mad at the numbers and/or the researchers, but wouldn’t you rather expend that energy on cheering the Dallas Stars into CRUSHING the Canucks in the 1st round?

The most glaring deceit is the headline of the chart which appears to have originated in the Post. Prior to the 1990′s Russia and Eastern Europe had no markets at all and as they are now becoming more organized with more public companies a greater percentage of their GDP is reflected in market capitalizaton. If the point is to defeat Sarbanes-Oxley I’m OK with that spin but if it is just another cheap swipe at America I’m not.
The article originated in the Financial Times and is quoted verbatim from there in the Post but is not cited or credited. I’m not comfortable with the Post’s reporting, the FT is a bit more even handed with it.